MAPILab digs into Outlook 2003’s spam filter

By
11.12.2003 :: 12:25PM EST

MAPILab has put a lot of time and effort into researching the capabilities of Microsoft Outlook and its spam-blocking capabilities in particular. It is apparent that MAPILab researchers were very unimpressed with what Microsoft calls “state-of-the-art technology developed by Microsoft Research.” In painstaking detail, MAPILab points out numerous weaknesses and inefficiencies with the Microsoft technology.

Specifically, MAPILab has detailed how the Outlook spam filter gives different weights to different e-mails depending on several categories. According to the MAPILab website, the following steps are taken to consider whether e-mail is junk or not:

The total weight of words in message body and subject is calculated

The weight is adjusted depending on the result of additional checks

The weight is converted into the range from 0 to 1 (normalized)

The normalized weight is converted into the range of 0..9 according to the table

The resulting value is compared with the chosen spam protection threshold

Based on the comparison result, the message is either placed into the Junk Mail folder or not.

Listed as additional checks in Step 2 are:

message sending time check

check of the message subject for words in uppercase

check of the sign number in the message subject

check of duplicate character number

and 8 other checks.

The other 8 checks are not detailed because, according to the website, “They appear to be no more intellectual than those described above … Moreover, they didn't anyhow affect the weight of messages we processed with the filter.”

Although MAPILab did point out that filtering for spam is a difficult task, it does not shy away from letting the world know that it feels Microsoft's attempt is weak. “The vaunted 'state-of-the-art Microsoft technology' is actually nothing more than a dozen of simple checks based on the quite evident ideas.”

CHRISTOPHER'S OPINION
Talk about not pulling any punches! MAPILab makes the built-in spam filter look fairly useless. It should be pointed out that MAPILab also provides links to third-party software that can assist where Microsoft falls short, so what the company has to say should be taken with a grain of salt. However, even if half of what is said is true I have no use for the “state of the art technology.”

As the website also points out, Microsoft is notorious for being bad at something out of the gate, only to become the absolute leader later. Look at Internet Explorer: the first versions were some of the worst browser software I had ever seen. Now MS owns the market. Don't be surprised if Microsoft is leading the anti-spam market in two years.

Until then it looks like you need to find another way to keep the spam from hitting your mailbox. I think MAPILab may have a suggestion or two of where you can look.

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USER COMMENTS 24 comment(s)

filter(12:34pm EST Wed Nov 12 2003)if they could just include the words 'penis enlargement' in the filter i think that could reduce spam dramatically. – by spook

i like it!(12:41pm EST Wed Nov 12 2003)I actually have been using it since the beta and after adding a couple of things to the black list, the filter is 99.9999% accurate on the 400+ spams I receive a day. – by spam hater

SpamBAYES(1:02pm EST Wed Nov 12 2003)Forget the Outlook builtin spam filtering options, SpamBayes is trainable in a couple of days, is easy to use, and is 100% effective after training for 1 week or so… OH its free….– by JOEspam

MAPILab(2:20pm EST Wed Nov 12 2003)I know many of you have a very low IQ (or are plain ignorant about certain things) so you'd never understand why MAPILab gave a bad review to MS's flagship email product. I'd rather expect Larry Ellison to say something positive about MS SQL or Symantec about the Anti Virus Software that will be included with the next version of Windows than MAPILab would about MS Outlook. All I am going to say is this: MAPILab is a crap company trying to sell you more filters for outlook that do not even work, just bulk the program and your computer even more. I am not going to take the word of a noname company over the word of MS and their world class research centre especially if that noname company makes a living out of selling you add-ons for MS Outlook claiming that it addresses all the shortcommings of that product. In other words what MAPILabs just pointed out in that review (for those who need to hear it more bluntly) was that: After Outlook 2003 they are going to die and never be heard of again. Good. Useless companies are better off corrupt than making useless products.

re: Rax

9. WD would not buy him a drink after work.— You're wrong. I can understand fair criticism, but not unfair and biased, so even if he criticized MS (which he often does) I'd be more interested in reading his coments than yours.

– by WD

I use Outlook 2003 Spam filtering(2:36pm EST Wed Nov 12 2003)It is about 90% effictive for me with no additional rules or filters. It has been working good enough that I have not even tweaked it for better efficiency. – by ScratchMan

The key point(2:54pm EST Wed Nov 12 2003)Now, all Outlook users have the same junk mail filter, and they can't adjust its settings or train it. So, MS present to spammers the key for Outlook mailboxes. – by Alex

Outlook 2003(3:11pm EST Wed Nov 12 2003)I haven't had a problem with it, and it's catching about 95% of my incoming Spam, with only one false positive so far (and the email in question could have been interpreted as Spam, but it was an ad mailing I'd requested to receive).

Like Scratchman, I've had no reason to tweak the filters since they work so well out of the box (And this is based off an account receiving about 70-80 Spam's a day on average).

As a comparison, I used Thunderbird for an email client for awhile whilst my main box was getting upgraded, and despite it's highly publicized Bayesian filters (or whatever the hell they're spelled as), I consistently had to tweak the Spam filters, and its best was only catching about 75% of the Spam I receive.

MAPILabs is just trying to sell products it would appear. – by Mr. Cancelled

Go Figure…(3:15pm EST Wed Nov 12 2003)So Microsoft has figured out a way to to assign numbers to 100,000 different terms in such a way that reviewers find it catches lots of their spam and none of their good mail, even doing better than those filters that supposedly catch “100%” of spam. And then they complain that the combination principle is simple and the dll is small so it can't work well, even though they didn't actually test it much themselves. And every time they don't understand why something is the way it is they assume it's a bug!?! I think they started out with the idea that MicroSoft was going to have done a bad job, but the tech sounds pretty cool to me? – by -L

RE:WD(3:59pm EST Wed Nov 12 2003)“– You're wrong. I can understand fair criticism, but not unfair and biased, so even if he criticized MS (which he often does) I'd be more interested in reading his coments than yours.”

Well who would have thought you could not take a joke.

I think if we took a poll I think most people would pick stepping in dog doo doo over reading one of your post.

At least that would be my vote.

– by Rax

re: Rax(4:09pm EST Wed Nov 12 2003)Well who would have thought you could not take a joke.— I take jokes well. You should relax a little too.

I think if we took a poll I think most people would pick stepping in dog doo doo over reading one of your post. –I do not need to go through a poll to step on dog $hit, it's all over the place so I have no choice. There's a lot of garbage that I read and reply to (as in this case), and I am not sure I am the only one here, so a poll against an individual would not be in your favor or anyone else's

Hmmmmm(6:46pm EST Wed Nov 12 2003)We use Exchange Server 2000 at work, and use Surf Control to weed out spam.

Surf Control is good, but not nearly perfect. It seems the only way to stop all spam emails and let through legitimate emails is to create an AI, rather than just a machine that scans everything and adds a number to flagged words. – by Headley

Frickin ad links(7:51pm EST Wed Nov 12 2003)What's the damn story with those fricken ad links in the story?

When I hover my pointer over the words SPAM FILTER, I get a pop-up offering me 3 free months of MSN 8.0?!

Yes, let's look at Internet Explorer…(12:19am EST Thu Nov 13 2003)Internet Explorer is rapidly falling behind other browsers in terms of useful features (e.g., tabbed browser and popup blocking), and yet the browser from Microsoft *still* has a lock on the market (with over 90% share), and there is little real indication that more feature-rich browsers like Mozilla will ever dislodge it.

Microsoft's software just has to be good enough to do the job, and once it reaches a monopoly position MS can just sit on their butts and let it stagnate, and it will still remain a dominant product. – by Prootwadl

I use netscape mail(10:28am EST Thu Nov 13 2003)and they have a spam filter that works great. I haven't gotten any spam in my inbox since I started using it. There is also a bulk e-mail folder that gets its share of stuff, but that's mail that I subscribe to. – by BubbaJones

Why bother Downloading SPAM?(6:12pm EST Fri Nov 14 2003)I have been using Mailwasher Pro which checks my mail, blacklists spammers, deletes spam and downloads my mail to my Outlook inbox without me having to worry about any of the crap getting on to my computer. – by DaveTN

SPAM bites…(1:39pm EST Thu Dec 18 2003)My Outlook 2003, out of the box, is catching a little more than 83% (ya, what a nerd, I went and calculated that) of my SPAM. I am considering doing away with email all together and sticking to IM. Of course at the first occurence of a SPAM IM, I am going back to paper cups and tight string to communicate with the world.

In the meantime, set an Outlook rule to forward all of your SPAM (everything in the junk email folder to your Congressperson, senator, and the FCC) – no wait, wouldn't that just make the spread of SPAM even worse? Never mind – just crawl in a hole and give up – there is no way to avoid SPAM (YET!) – by I_hate_SPAM

2003 works ok(4:49pm EST Fri Dec 26 2003)Outlook 2003 seems to do a better job than the 3rd party software I was using, but like most Microsoft products, there are not enough options.

For some reason it does not filter spam in other folders. – by Max

I thought Outlook was supposed to learn…(1:58pm EST Thu Jan 22 2004)It's not learning at all. It catches a lot of junk especially after the update, but it's still not as effective as SpamBayes.

People can stop trying to blow off the critics because they have a point. – by ShawnL

Best Spam Filter for me(3:41pm EST Tue Jan 27 2004)i installed few days ago Spam Bully, it's cool, are almost 100% spam filter.. Have some intresting things.. such looking in IE favorites and IE history to and allow them to past if message come from that domains, bayesian filter… and other nice tools. I like feature Child Mode that i set for my childs profiles and not allow them to see any xxx emails..